Just a quick note.. I asked for a Init, Hit, Refresh, and the cards lost their provisioning and they had to roll a truck. Not sure if its related or why the cards lost provisioning, but that was what happened here!

Just a quick note.. I asked for a Init, Hit, Refresh, and the cards lost their provisioning and they had to roll a truck. Not sure if its related or why the cards lost provisioning, but that was what happened here!

what exactly were you seeing or receiving before they lost their provisioning? Aboslutely no one in their "service" dept has any clue how to fix this.

like i said, im getting local channels and local channels in hd -- but im not getting anything digital. in other words, im getting under 10 channels. no espn, no hbo, no NOTHING. what do i do? help!!!

D'oh. Well someone here said they're supposed to give you a xeroxed page with a number to call and activation instructions. I asked about that and the (admittedly new) girl gave me a blank stare and said, "nope, that's it." I searched on this board but couldn't find the number.........I don't suppose anyone would have it to help a brutha out, huh? :'(

The Houston Activation # is 713 341 8080 (8-5 mf)

after activation tech support 713 462 9000

__________________
The TOS for the Internet clearly notes there will be people who display their ignorance without giving any warning and indeed are likely unaware they are displaying their ignorance for all to see.

Have wifey turn on TV and let me know what's happening. Get a nice woman who is very competent, start to explain my dilemma, mention it is a Tivo, tell her that the message boards said I should do a "Hard Reset or Initialization, then a Hit, then a Refresh, whatever that means!" (Of course I know what it means but I want to play dumb so she feels like the expert. Power struggles rarely result in working cable service)

This is so true. I do software for a living, and I always to try to act like I know just enough to ask the right leading questions when dealing with IT people. They seem to respond so much better when I sound helpless.

On the other hand, I really am a village idiot when it comes to things like car repairs. I don't need to act.

Quote:

Notes:

I have noticed a few *tiny* pixelization artifacts occur, both during live HD and on the Tivo menu. Does not bother me one bit. They are small areas and resolve quickly.

I have noticed the pixelization problem on mine as well, but it is so minor that I can deal with it. It does not happen often on mine.

__________________
Comcast - "What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it."

I finally, finally, finally talked with someone at Comcast who knows what the heck they were talking about. Lawrence in the Pittsburgh office, who has 4 cable cards at home (wow, imagine how much of a difference it makes if the tech actually uses the technology).

Mike,

I wish you the best of luck tomorrow. Sounds like you have a good chance of having things work out with a good person to talk to.

It did take several minutes for the TiVo to tune all of the channels correctly after they reset the card and entered all of the numbers. You will be really happy with it once it works, even with the very minor pixellation issues.

The only thing for which I can't wish you luck is the upcoming season for dem Steelers. I'm hoping that Big Ben performs like last year, but I somehow doubt that he will be that bad. Either way, we will both be watching at least one road game on our new TiVo HD boxes.

__________________
Comcast - "What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it."

Comcast never called as they said they would, and when I got home from work Card 2 still wasn't receiving all channels as promised. I called my installer directly as he'd promised to stop by with a new card to try out. He said he wouldn't be by - he was off in 15 minutes - but he'd have dispatch call me to try to activate (hit?) the card again.

Ten minutes later, Myrna called me from dispatch and had me read the host and data info to her to which she says, "Oops! Kurt must have read me a wrong digit last night! It should be active in a minute."

One minute later - bam! - card 2 is up and running with all channels. But card 1 is now not receiving premiums...

Soooo...... she says she'll call Kurt and send him right over (I thought he was off at 5?!?). He shows up with another tech - the resident "cablecard expert" - and they proceed to remove both cards, have dispatch remove them from my account, and start all over again at step 1 after power cycling TiVo.

Long story short (too late!), he inserted card 1, called in the info, and everything worked. He inserted card 2, called in the info (with the right digits this time!) and everything worked.

Thank goodness!

After all that, he says, "Well - looks like we won't be needing this card, then!" and pulls another cablecard from his shirt pocket. I glance at the card and see in giant letters, "M-CARD." I remark, "I wish you'd pulled that out sooner! That's a multi-stream card so I'd only need one." His eyes glazed over and I figured that as long as everything was up and working, that was a conversation for another day. I can live with $1.50 per month to not have to see Comcast again.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts..

After all that, he says, "Well - looks like we won't be needing this card, then!" and pulls another cablecard from his shirt pocket. I glance at the card and see in giant letters, "M-CARD." I remark, "I wish you'd pulled that out sooner! That's a multi-stream card so I'd only need one." His eyes glazed over and I figured that as long as everything was up and working, that was a conversation for another day. I can live with $1.50 per month to not have to see Comcast again.

Does that sound familiar! Well, after 6 different phone calls to Comcast and 4 separate promises that I would receive a call back, I finally decided I'd double check with Tivo tech support to make sure there weren't any hiccups with my system.

Before I go on, let me just say: If you don't get someone from Comcast who clearly is helpful and knows what they're doing, just hang up. You aren't going to accomplish anything and just drive yourself nuts. With that said, I started asking for supervisors and actually was told she was going to escalate my problem. I'd heard this before, but figured it couldn't hurt. Guess what? She was the first of two supervisors today alone to promise to personally return my call within one hour. These two supervisors and two other technical service reps promised calls and just flat out didn't do what they promised.

Talk about a b.s. way to treat your customers -- promise to help them with a return call and then just flat out lie before hanging up. They're going to be getting a personal letter from me on that one.

Anyways, I called Tivo Cablecard support and received -- as usual -- a knowledgable and helpful guy who totally understood my issue. He checked the settings on both cards through the conditioning access screens, and was able to verify everything on both cards had been validated by Crapcast. I explained that all my channels appeared to be there, but were blank besides the local ones. He agreed this was unquestionably a Comcast issue and recommended a three-way conference call.

Even though I knew the problem, and was able to explain it, having him on the line with Comcast seemed to somehow validate that was indeed the case. We were routed initially to Comcast's cable group -- who then realized they couldn't help before forwarding us to the Tinley Park office.

People in Chicago -- listen UP! You MUST get someone in the Tinley Park office. If you don't, you're just spinning your wheels. Our tech contact was Wanda and she really knew what she was doing. She asked for the Data number and made some comparisons to my account. Soon enough she realized that my cablecards had been set up as regular cable cards. Apparently, Comcast has a special designation for cablecards that are used in Series 3 (or Tivo HD) boxes. No one in the last 48 hours knew about this except Wanda -- and she made a bunch of adjustments...

And Channels Came In!!!!

She had to make additional adjustments using information from my pairing screen for my premium channels that didn't come in. However, in about 10 minutes everything came through and is now working beautifully.

If you're in Chicago and need some guidance, send me a PM. I'll be glad to help. My wife and I were getting to the point of meltdown today. We had an installer here for over 3 hours today while I was at work. But, seeing her queue up our new season passes and my recordings in HD was totally worth it.

Went and picked up my card(s) today, it just so happens the person gave me an M card with an S card, so I installed the M card. all my basic digital is working, tho I missed the time for when the authorizing techs got off at 5pm, so I should be done tomorrow.

Both tuners work flawlessly, HD locals look sharp.

Only weird thing is after I ran setup with the M Card and it installed a patch of some sort it biffed my HDMI saying something about my tv not being authorized. I'll worry about that later.

__________________
The TOS for the Internet clearly notes there will be people who display their ignorance without giving any warning and indeed are likely unaware they are displaying their ignorance for all to see.

I've a Tivo HD and Comcast in Sacramento, CA came out today for the CableCard installation and setup. Everything went together without a hitch.

When I placed my order I told the order-taker-person that I need two CableCard's and that the cards were going into a Tivo. I made doubly sure that the order-taker added into the notes that I did need two cards and it was for a Tivo. This would later prove itself out as a good thing, as when I called two days before the tech showed up the order only mentioned one card, but the order notes said I'ld need two cards and that it was for a Tivo.

The day the tech came out we went over the instruction sheet from Tivo. He put the first card in, and called his back end support. Fortunately he was on a Nextel push-to-talk radio so he was able to get quick feedback. Both cards are Motorola brand and looked new since they were in plastic shell cases (no shrink wrap though).

Anyways, the card went in and the backend guy sent a series of three hits to the card. The channel test diagnostic showed I was able to get the HDTV channels (922 for Discovery HD for example). Went through guided setup (which took a pretty long time to run). Repeated for the second card. I forgot to run guided setup again, so the Tivo only showed one tuner as active. Ran guided setup, which ran for a pretty long time and the second tuner came active.

As of now I have all the channels I should as part of Comcast's base tier digital package. Both tuners work and everything is hunky dory.

The only remaining problems are on Tivo's side with the pixelation and the audio stops working, but time will work those out.

I can't remember the tech's name, his tech number is 2992. The backend guy was Rich I think.

Just remembered, it took about two hours for the whole process. The vast majority of the time was waiting on the Tivo box to download and set itself up.

Anyways, the card went in and the backend guy sent a series of three hits to the card. The channel test diagnostic showed I was able to get the HDTV channels (922 for Discovery HD for example). Went through guided setup (which took a pretty long time to run). Repeated for the second card. I forgot to run guided setup again, so the Tivo only showed one tuner as active. Ran guided setup, which ran for a pretty long time and the second tuner came active.

Just remembered, it took about two hours for the whole process. The vast majority of the time was waiting on the Tivo box to download and set itself up.

There is no need to run Guided setup after the first card install, only after both are installed.

__________________Comcast, Cox, TW, Charter and BHN are cabal companies.
(That is not a spelling error. Check the definition.)

I just ordered the two cablecards from Comcast. I live in Pembroke Pines, FL 33028. They will be here on Aug 18 to install them. They said that the first card installation is free but to install the second card they will charge me $17.60 and the monthly fee for the second card will be $6.95, no monthly fee for the first card. Plus I'll still have to pay $14.95 a month for the Digital Plus. I told them that I'm providing my own Tivo box but the CSR told me that I still have to pay the $14.95 a month for the Digital Plus. That's what I'm paying a month for their box that includes the Digital Plus package. Does this $14.95 a month charge sound OK? I told them that I was going to return their cable box and use my Tivo for the Digital Plus + HD but again, the CSR said that I still have to pay that $14.95 a month plus the $6.95 for the HD. Please let me know if you guys think that is the right amount.

HD Tivo still works great, here are some misc. notes on my experience:

Interestingly, my cable card (M Card) still reports "? 0x00" under V: for validation. I wonder why validation is not required? Perhaps this is a local Chicago Comcast setting? Is it because I am using a Comcast cablecard? Is it because I have no premium channels, just expanded digital cable?

I do have Auth: S (for Subscribed) instead of the old "MP" (for Missing Program Rekey). In fact this is the only thing that seemed to change when my card was correctly activated.

Also, it still says under the Pairing screen "In order to start cable service for this device, please call...." which I thought would go away once it was working. Not so apparently.

From the beginning I always had Encryption: DES.

I also had Connected: Yes and EnabledByCP: Yes, except for after one hit where the Connected: changed to "No". This seemed to switch back to "Yes" after another hit or the final init, not sure.

I never ever had to give anything other than the Serial number of the M card to Comcast support. Didn't verify the other fields (such as data) at all.

Interestingly, my cable card (M Card) still reports "? 0x00" under V: for validation. I wonder why validation is not required? Perhaps this is a local Chicago Comcast setting? Is it because I am using a Comcast cablecard? Is it because I have no premium channels, just expanded digital cable?

Also, it still says under the Pairing screen "In order to start cable service for this device, please call...." which I thought would go away once it was working. Not so apparently.

I never ever had to give anything other than the Serial number of the M card to Comcast support. Didn't verify the other fields (such as data) at all.

oxoo implies that there is no copy restrictions on the channel that the tuner is tuned to. It should be only 0x02 or 3 for premium channels, but this varies from provider to provider.

"In order to start..." messgae stays forever. It is just there to confuse you.

If you didn't have to provide host and data it means that your provider is not pairing the cards to the host. Someday they may change this policy and mess everyone up.

__________________Comcast, Cox, TW, Charter and BHN are cabal companies.
(That is not a spelling error. Check the definition.)

Went and picked up my card(s) today, it just so happens the person gave me an M card with an S card, so I installed the M card. all my basic digital is working, tho I missed the time for when the authorizing techs got off at 5pm, so I should be done tomorrow.

Both tuners work flawlessly, HD locals look sharp.

Thanks for the phone numbers, btw. I also missed the time for the authorizing techs, but I agree the local channels look great. This morning I poppped it on and it looked like I get a few of the other HD channels (Universal and MHD were working), but didn't seem like the digital channels or Discovery HD were on yet. I'll check again after work and if they're not all set up I'll have to call again. I noticed some pixelization last night that was not too cool, but that was only around an hour after I'd put the card in and later that night and this morning it seemed to have cleared up.

I'm surprised they still had M-Cards at the Bissonnet location because they told the guy in line after me that I'd taken the last card (though maybe that was wrong).

I'm surprised they still had M-Cards at the Bissonnet location because they told the guy in line after me that I'd taken the last card (though maybe that was wrong).

Mine looked brand new.

The lady that helped me gave me a copy of the paper you didn't get too. Maybe they got more in after you left.

Nice to see Comcrap invest $$ wisely.. that office looked ghetto, but had 64 monitors going to show the content they have on cable

__________________
The TOS for the Internet clearly notes there will be people who display their ignorance without giving any warning and indeed are likely unaware they are displaying their ignorance for all to see.

I told them that I'm providing my own Tivo box but the CSR told me that I still have to pay the $14.95 a month for the Digital Plus. That's what I'm paying a month for their box that includes the Digital Plus package. Does this $14.95 a month charge sound OK? I told them that I was going to return their cable box and use my Tivo for the Digital Plus + HD but again, the CSR said that I still have to pay that $14.95 a month plus the $6.95 for the HD.

$14.95 includes programming and either one SD box or one CableCard. The second card is $1.79 in my area, and there shouldn't be "HD charge".

Only weird thing is after I ran setup with the M Card and it installed a patch of some sort it biffed my HDMI saying something about my tv not being authorized. I'll worry about that later.

Figured this out this AM, after doing a quick search on the TiVo site, I had to unplug the hdmi cable from the TV side get it to resend the auth code. I had tried everything BUT that, disconnected it from the reciever, went straight from TiVo to TV, powered it all down and back up, stuff that normally works.

Hoping when I get home I'm authorized and running 100%.

__________________
The TOS for the Internet clearly notes there will be people who display their ignorance without giving any warning and indeed are likely unaware they are displaying their ignorance for all to see.

Just had a mixed experience with Comcast DC. I called on Sunday to make an appointment to have two CableCARDs installed in my TiVo HD today between 9am and 12pm. I didn't specify S-Cards or M-Cards, since I figured I'd get the luck of the draw and if they only brought one card, with my luck, it would be an S-Card.

Anyway, the installer (Comcast employee, not contractor) showed up today at 10:30am. He brought two S-Cards. The first one installed perfectly. He's obviously installed these in TiVos before, as he knew exactly what he was doing. Interestingly enough, Comcast DC doesn't need any information from the pairing screen--just the serial number for the card--to authorize them. The second card was more of a struggle; we couldn't get any of the Digital channels to show up, with the exception of the digital HDs. Dispatch told him just to leave, and that the channels would download within 24 hours. He knew this was wrong, and argued with them. After another hour or so of calling and waiting, his supervisor radioed and told him he was spending too much time and he really needed to get to his other jobs.

He left, and I logged on to TCF to see if there was anything I could do to troubleshoot. Turns out the second CableCARD was stuck in the MISSING_PROGRAM_REKEY status, which I guess means it needs to be initialized. I called 1-800-COMCAST, got someone who knew what they were doing on the first try, and they sent an init signal to the cards. About a minute later, I got the 161-4 error on both cards, and everything worked great!

All of the first line technicians and CSRs I dealt with in this instance were great. However, I was not so impressed with dispatch. You'd think SOMEONE over there would have thought to send the init signal to the cards.

Anyway, all is well now. I haven't seen much in the way of pixelation when watching live TV (though I did notice it in the menus a couple of times), and am looking forward to putting this box through its paces.

I noticed a couple of you are able to get all the digital and HD channels but no analog. Same here. Had two Comcast guys come out here today for about 2 hours and talked to 3 different "support" people before they figured out that was the problem. I even told them that before the cable cards were installed, we were able to receive analog channels without a problem, so it is obviously not a Tivo issue.

They both shook their heads and had no clue what to do and let me here without my favorite shows that happen to be on those channels. They said "It must be a Tivo problem."

I bought a Tivo HD last week, and was upgrading from a Series 2 and regular cable box. I read this forum and thread before I called, so I felt I knew what hurdles I might have to jump through.

On the phone, the rep sounded unsure when I asked about CCs. It seemed like she'd heard of them, but not much more than that. I asked if I could pick one up, and she said they needed to be installed by a tech. So, I ordered a truck roll, but made sure she put in the notes "This is an M-Card or dual S-Card capable Tivo HD, very similar to the Tivo Series 3, so please send a tech who has done a TiVo CC install before, and please bring extra cards." I made her read it back to me, even though to her it might as well have been French.

Today, the tech showed up on time, and he told me he'd only done one TiVo install before, a Series 3, last year, and it took 4 hours, and it was a nightmare. He proceeded to pull out two red M-Cards, and he understood, thanks to the TiVo CC installer sheet, that he only needed to use one. He followed the instructions closely, and called in to get it activated. Only the basic channels were coming in, not the digital cable ones (I don't have any extra movie channel stuff, like HBO, etc). He kept trying to get the people on the other end to send the right "hit", and it wasn't hitting. After about 30 minutes, and 3 different people on the other end (he hung up on one mid sentence and called back fishing for a different person -- and said if he got the same idiot again he was going to keep hanging up), he decided to try the other M-Card. That produced the same result as the first one, but he got through to a "good" tech on the phone, who was able to apply the right "hit" mojo, and it started working 100%. I checked the channels, and it was all good.

The tech seemed relieved, and you know I was. 40 minutes total. So, I guess I'm one of the luckier ones posting. FYI I'm on the NW side in Comcast's Irving district.

This is interesting--I just noticed that when I tune to a channel <100, my TiVo is tuning the analog version of the channel rather than the digital one that is available. I'd prefer it tune and record the digital version, since I think the quality of the digital is better around here.

Anyone else have this issue? Any magic words to say to Comcast to fix it?

Can someone please explain the installation process of the cards? Is it hard to install these cards? If no cable box is needed does the cable from the wall attach to the Series 3 and that's it or do you need to split the signal going to the Series 3 since there are 2 tuners on the box?

This is interesting--I just noticed that when I tune to a channel <100, my TiVo is tuning the analog version of the channel rather than the digital one that is available. I'd prefer it tune and record the digital version, since I think the quality of the digital is better around here.

Anyone else have this issue? Any magic words to say to Comcast to fix it?

Magic words:

"Dear Mr. Comcast, my cablecards are tuning to the analog version of the basic channels, rather than the digital feed. Can this please be changed?".

Followed by:

"It appears that you are not familar with this capability. Could I please speak with your supervisor". Then repeat first quote.

If this doesn't work, hang up and call back tomorrow.

__________________Comcast, Cox, TW, Charter and BHN are cabal companies.
(That is not a spelling error. Check the definition.)

This is interesting--I just noticed that when I tune to a channel <100, my TiVo is tuning the analog version of the channel rather than the digital one that is available. I'd prefer it tune and record the digital version, since I think the quality of the digital is better around here.

Anyone else have this issue? Any magic words to say to Comcast to fix it?

It may depend on where you're located, which you forgot to put in you profile so it'd show up on the left.

In my case, Comcast denied that it was possible at all, but they don't know their own system. The magic is to go to your local office to pick up a digital only converter box, this was a DCT-700. You don't actually have to take possetion of the box, just have them put it on your account. When they did that, the computer seeing you have a digital only box switches your account to digital only. You might want to take the box out of the office just to be safe, you can return it as soon as you see the right channels. In my case the right channels were working before I got home, which somewhat confused me.

That didn't work for me. I got a call from someone who claimed to be a senior tech. They denied it was possible at all.

Washington, DC, here (profile fixed, thanks). Yeah, I just had a CSR who was trying to tell me I was wrong and that I had no CableCARDs but two high def receivers, and proceeded to read me off the serial numbers of the CableCARDs when I asked what the account was showing. Then he asked me to unplug and replug everything back in, and let him know when I was done. I wished him a good evening and hung up... I don't have the time for that tonight

I'll try again tomorrow. Seems like the more competent CSRs work during the day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by btwyx

The magic is to go to your local office to pick up a digital only converter box, this was a DCT-700.

Thanks, I'll try that as a last resort. The local office is not even close to convenient for me to get to.